I started by taking the subway a couple blocks north (it was definitely walkable, but didn’t want to exhaust myself at the start) to Asakuna, where sits the Senso-ji Temple, reportedly one of Tokyo’s busiest. Despite being barely 8 am, the place was fairly and the whole street walking up to the temple was lined with booths. Fortunately, it was still early and the booths were just barely getting set up for the day, otherwise it would have been a nightmare to visit. I later learned, that Friday (today) was the first day of a three day weekend at the temple. Given my aversion to crowds, I did well to swing by before the festival kicked into high gear. The temple itself was impressive, but after lighting some incense and looking around perfunctorily, I took off.
I headed over to the Sumida River to walk along the riverside, enjoying the view of a few notable buildings on the other bank, such as the Tokyo Sky Tree and the Suntory Brewery, which has a golden (turd-shaped) flame sculpture on its top.
I was heading to the sword museum, but as I was a bit early, I took a brief stroll through a neighboring garden and walked over to the Sumo Wrestling hall on the next block to see what was up. So, I was smack dab in the middle of a two week sumo wrestling tournament with matches going on everyday. One could reasonably buy a ticket and hang out inside for as long as they wanted. Unfortunately, they were already sold out for the day.
The sword museum was nice, but utterly failed to adequately teach anything about the differences between the various samurai swords. Despite the current exhibit being designed to teach about the “shapes” of the swords, I couldn’t see any difference in curvatures across 1000 years of swords.
There were two other museums in the neighborhood, so I hurried over to the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which turned out to be massive. This is definitely a must-visit museum and throngs of tourists were everywhere in the cavernous, elevated museum. Entire city blocks of structures were recreated inside the museum, which covered in detail every aspect of life in the Edo period of Tokyo, from how water was delivered and the finer points of the economic systems to how sushi was larger in the past and the rice had a reddish hue from the vinegar. The museum also covered the Meiji restoration and modern eras in only slightly less detail. One could easily spend 5-6 hours trying to read every sign, all rendered in Japanese and English in print but with computer terminals at various points providing translations in Korean, Chinese, French, Spanish and a dozen other languages. It was a sensory and information overload, so at some point I powered down and took it in holistically. I could go on and on about the museum, but it is better to just experience it in person.
The next museum was dedicated to an artist I thought I was unfamiliar with–Sumida Hokusai–but learned is the creator of the 36 views of Mt Fuji and countless other famous ukiyo-e prints. The permanent exhibit (to which my Grutto Pass entitled free admission) only occupied about 15% of the floor space of the museum, but it was still a sufficient exhibition with tons of art work and interactive terminals providing lots of information about the artist’s life and works.
Three more museums arranged like a southern constellation were within walking distance. I headed to the furthest one–The Museum of Contemporary Art–first. On the way, I passed a Ministop and bought a peach-flavored soft-serve ice cream because it was on sale to introduce the limited-run flavor. That served as my lunch. I’ve been popping into quite a few convenience stores because I am running low on cash and trying to find an ATM that works with my bank card and my 30-day data is about to expire unless I buy more to top it up.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, sits in the corner of an enormous park that I didn’t bother walking around. The art was a bit modern for my taste with installations and book length explanations for each piece.
The next museum was the Fukagawa Edo Museum. Fukagawa is the name of the neighborhood, which was quite prosperous in Edo times. There are still Buddhist temples on every block. The small museum was basically just a Colonial Williamsburg, recreating a whole village with volunteers on hand to explain things if needed. I just looked around a bit and enjoyed the virtual sunset and rainy weather effects.
I paid a whopping 150 yen to visit the lovely Kiyosumi Gardens, which were halfway between the final two museums. It was quite nice, but I guess all these Japanese gardens are starting to look the same. The novelty has worn off, but they are all still serene places to stroll about.
I swung by the Basho Museum, which was really outside my domain. It was dedicated to a literary figure who did a fair amount of calligraphy, but whether it was my lack of understanding of context or the accumulated exhaustion, it all flew over my head and I was happy to be pushing on to walk back the kilometer and a half to the hostel.
It was still daylight and I was already back. It was wonderful. I popped over to a supermarket to get a snack and a can of beer to break my alcohol fast while I recharged my literal and metaphorical batteries. Getting hungry, I went back to the tonkatsu place and had an early dinner. I grabbed more beer and dessert (despite being satisfied) on the way back. Feeling bad about sneaking beers into the hostel, I ordered one drink at the bar as well.
| Breakfast | 285 |
| Peach ice cream | 120 |
| Kiyosumi Garden | 150 |
| Beer and snacks | 573 |
| Tonkatsu | 950 |
| Beer and chocolate cake | 544 |
| Ginger highball | 300 |
| Total: | 2922 JPY (187 RMB) (USD 27.05) |
Running Total: 34492 RMB (USD 4989.27)
Daily Average: 313.56 RMB (USD 45.36)
I saved 3100 yen on the six museums not paying for admission to any of them.